BLIND HUSBAND'S MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1922, Page 19

BLIND HUSBAND'S MURDER.

23 TEAKS' SESTBXOE FOB KILLIXe

The most sensational trial Bern* baa kDown for many years -has come to an end after a hearing extending over six weeks.

Ignazio Mesones, the blind Lothario, th* leader of the night world of the etty, the arbiter of fashion among those young men who pursue pleasure in cafes, dance dubs and theatrical dressing rooms, has been sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-three years and nine months for the murder at his girl wife, Bice Slmonettl.

The woman he loved, perhaps the enr/ woman he .ever cared for, waa Maria dl Angelis. Els wife, whom, be married for her money, was an obstacle In toe way of his life with Maria.

Therefore Maria and be concocted a plot to nnt the wife out of the way, and he soot her one dark night on the embankment beside the Tiber. Maria dl Angelis, while In gaol on a charge of fraud at the time, was nevertheless arrested as an accomplice, and (he la now sentenced to ten years and aeven mouths' imprisonment. There is no deatti penalty in Italy. "The murderer's defence was that his wife committed suicide, and that he waa Incapable of the deed because lie was blnid. He has. in fact, been losing hie eight gradually during the last five year*, and in now totally blind. The power of the morderer'a wtH Is demonstrated by the fact that he persuaded his wife to stay In an hotel under a false name the night before the crime, and to I write two letters for hie own use. One was dated from Naples asking for funde, and was used T>y Mesones to extort money from 'Rice's parents; the other was a farewell letter, signed with a. false name, which, was found on her bed.

It was owing to the second of these letters that the identity of the murdered woman [ was not discovered for two years. Bhe was buried under the false name, but the efforts of a detective employed by her parents eventually brought the truth to light.